The Unseen Tempest (Lords of Arcadia) (5 page)

The air of Evermore still cloyed, still bore that same heavy, ambrosial smell that always made his stomach turn when he was younger. From outside, the city looked like just another one of the dozen or so copses of trees that littered eastern Arcadia. The inner truth, much like the elves themselves, was far different.

Ater hadn’t moved from the spot at which he appeared.

He wasn’t wearing weapons or armor of any kind and was not carrying a pack. He was dressed in a normal leather outfit and nothing else. He knew if the guards hadn’t seen him appear, they would sense it soon enough, and he knew they would spend the first few minutes just watching him. If he made a move toward Evermore, he’d be killed instantly, unarmed or not. Once it was obvious the Shaladrow was not hostile, word of his arrival would be sent to the center of town, where it would be conveyed to the ruling council.

Then would come the “discussion.” Or, as Ater put it, arguing.

Elves were some of the longest-lived mortal beings in the Nine Realms. The perspectives of age showed in their attitude when dealing with others. It was not unusual for a debate among elders to draw out into months and sometimes years if the situation was complicated. Passion and exuberant emotion were generally frowned upon in the upper echelon of elven culture; instead, calm and well-thought-out logic was desirable, especially in the case of council members.

Which meant the council would spend more time on sticking to the established rules and protocol of an argument than arguing the actual point itself. Ater waited, knowing an unarmed dark elf standing outside the city boundaries was such an unusual event that it would take them some time to come to a decision as to how it should be handled.

Knowing a long, boring wait was coming, Ater passed the time by counting the number of guards hidden in the deep shadows of the trees watching him watch them. The sun had moved from midday to almost setting by the time someone presented himself to speak to him. As soon as he saw who they had sent, Ater knew the ruling council had identified him.

The elf who strode toward him from the cover of Evermore had a full, curly head of brassy red hair that seemed to go out of its way to cover the distinctive ears and eyebrows all elves possessed. It was a sign of his devotion, since followers of Koran were forbidden to cut their hair or to be clean-shaven. Most elves cut their hair only once when they came of age as an adult, the ritual signifying the end of one life and the start of another to Koran. Instead of a pondak—a traditional elven weapon, which was a long bow with a razor-sharp blade laminated into its outer edge for use in hand-to-hand combat as well as long-range attack—the elf wore what looked like an intricately carved longbow on his back. Ater knew, though the weapon looked less threatening than its bladed cousin, it was far more devastating than it seemed. In the past, whole nations had fallen to such weapons as the one the approaching elf wore, and Ater knew not to underestimate it.

The thought struck him that, if the council had wanted him dead, they would have had him killed from the cover of Evermore, so what did he have to fear from a weapon?

Ater said nothing as the light elf got closer and closer. The look on the newcomer’s face was a combination of great anger and great dread. The dark elf understood both emotions and couldn’t blame him. The light elf stopped a few feet in front of Ater, his hands balled into fists as if he were struggling against the urge to swing at him.

“Is he?” was all the elf asked.

Ater nodded and looked away from the other elf’s accusing eyes.

It was the last thing he recalled before being knocked unconscious.

Chapter 2

“Three can keep a secret if two

of them are mechanical beings.”

From the brochure entitled

“So you want to build the perfect

person? We can help with that.”

Tinker and Jones Promotional Material

T
HE
RABBIT
in the circle looked like it was about to have a heart attack.

Of course, when I thought about it, most rabbits looked like they were on the verge of dropping dead from fright no matter how chill the situation was. Of course, those were rabbits who couldn’t walk or talk or wear a pretty snazzy vest. If you had asked me how I would have reacted to meeting
the
white rabbit before all this nonsense started happening, I would have sworn I would lose my shit.

But now, looking at the real thing in front of me, all I could think of was how big those two front teeth looked. Weird? Not so much.

Okay, truth—I never liked rabbits. I had a bad experience with one when I was little, and instead of the visions of happy, fluffy balls of joy the word evoked in other people, whenever I looked at one, all I could think was how big their teeth were. And none of those rabbits came past my waist like this one did. No matter how much I personally feared bunnies in general, this one was way different. For one, he was yelling pretty loudly.

“You have no right to hold me here!” Milo practically spat at Hawk as he glared up at him. I say glared, but the actual look came across far cuter than the rabbit intended, because no matter how angry he was, there was no denying he was an adorable rabbit. And let me assure you of something I’ve been learning from being with Hawk—it is hard to be scared of adorable.

Hawk slid Truheart from its sheath an inch at a time, and Milo stopped talking.

“I have every right,” Hawk stated. He began to walk slowly around the circle, waving the sword back and forth the way an annoyed cat’s tail moves. “After all, I am the effective ruler of Arcadia at the moment, and you—” He stopped and pointed the sword at the rabbit. “—are my captive.”

I swear I could almost hear Milo’s heart beating inside his chest.

The rabbit straightened his back and said as convincingly as possible, “Your threats mean nothing to me. I am protected by the Seven Accords!” He couldn’t have sounded less threatening if he had started tap dancing and singing rock and roll.

Hawk gave the rabbit an evil smile and said, “I never signed the Accords, did I?” He moved the sword farther into the circle for effect.

That was when I lost it.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked, knocking his sword arm away from Milo. “You brought a rabbit here to threaten it?”

Well, I now knew what Hawk looked like when he was mad, because the expression on his face was a whole new one. I could hear the anger in his thoughts, though luckily, no actual words were conveyed. He lowered his sword and gestured for me to move out of the way.

“You can jerk your head all you want, but I am not letting you stab a defenseless rabbit wearing a bow tie, for God’s sake.”

“He is a messenger for the royal family,” Hawk growled through his teeth.

“I don’t care if he is related to the queen of England. I am not letting you attack him.” Defiantly, I put myself between the circle and Hawk.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he warned me.

I put my hands on my hips. “Try me.”

He must have felt my anger, because he sighed and put his sword away. “Fine, you get him to help us.”

Shaking my head, I turned around to face Milo. His whiskers quivered as I knelt down and put my hand out toward him. “I’m Kane,” I said softly. “And I’m not going to hurt you.” His ears, which up to this point had been flattened to his head, slowly started to rise. His eyes looked like huge pools of bright blue water as he fixed his gaze on me. I could see his hands were moving open and closed in some nervous reaction to the situation. I moved my hand closer. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”

Which is, of course, when he bit me.

Turns out I was right. His teeth were sharp and pierced through the palm of my hand like it was nothing. I wasn’t sure whose screams were louder, Hawk’s or mine. Since I was busy, you know, screaming in pain, I couldn’t really judge. From the way he went down gripping his hand, it was obvious he felt it just as bad. Tell the truth, this could have been a really short story called “How a Defenseless Rabbit Took Over Arcadia” if Ruber hadn’t been with us.

A beam of light shot out from the ruby and hit the rabbit in its face. Whatever it was must have been potent since his mouth went slack instantly, and he fell over onto his side. If I wasn’t looking at a gusher of blood coming from my hand, I would have been worried that Milo looked pretty dead right then, but since I was, I didn’t, and part of me, real small, hoped he was.

I fell back onto my ass, holding my injured hand at the wrist as hard as I could. I suppose part of me was trying to apply pressure, but it was more likely I was just too terrified to do anything else.

“Heal,” Ruber said, moving over my hand, projecting an orangeish beam on the wound.

I flinched, expecting the beam to be like some magical version of alcohol, which always burned like acid no matter how much my dad assured me it wouldn’t. Instead, warmth started from the open wound and moved outward across my entire palm. The pain went from a white-hot ball of ouch to a burning cut to a small flicker of annoyance within seconds. Ruber’s magic gave me an instant contact high.

Stop looking at me like that. Do you
know
how many stoners live in Athens? Yeah, I’ve had a contact high just attending the Summer Music Festival. I never understood before now why so many people like pot, but if it made you feel this good, I was starting to get the idea. Luckily the feeling did not stop Hawk’s thoughts coming through loud and clear.

I scrambled to my feet and threw myself on him as he lunged at the rabbit’s prone body.

He tumbled to the side as I made contact with him. I could feel the impact in my ribs as we slid across the library floor. Hawk’s fury was like a tangible thing as he tried to get out from under me. If we weren’t connected I would have been worried, but since true love’s kiss and all that, I knew my being bitten and him feeling the pain was just the crap cherry on the shit sundae we were calling life lately. He was venting his anger in a situation he could handle because there was so much he couldn’t deal with.

Using his own moves against him, I held him down until he could start thinking rationally again. The red that was his rage began to fade from his mind, and he stopped fighting me so hard. He looked up, and I could feel him come back to me. He was half-embarrassed, half-regretful, but mostly too proud to apologize.

I saw him open his mouth, and I waited for him to try to make it better.

“He’s getting away.”

I looked behind me and saw that Milo was not only awake but had his pocket watch out and was opening it. I remembered what Hawk had told me back in Athens about his watch being a piece of time or something.

“Ruber! Stop him!” I yelled out as the watch began to glow.

Milo fumbled with the watch dial as the giant ruby sailed closer. The moment the watch flipped open, golden light poured out of it like it was a minispotlight. I squinted and saw Ruber move into the center of the light and heard him say, “Magnify.”

The light changed from a beam to an ocean, and the entire room was engulfed with its radiance. I had thrown my arm over my eyes as a reflex and waited to be blinded because the light seemed strong enough to shine through skin. Seconds passed, and the only thing I noticed was the silence.

Complete and utter silence.

The total absence of sound was screwing with my mind. Part of me wondered if I’d gone deaf, the change was so quick. I decided to check things out and looked up cautiously. Milo crouched in the center of the circle, slapping the side of his watch with his paw. Ruber had raised an energy field around him, ensuring he couldn’t physically move anywhere.

“What’s going on?” Hawk asked from underneath me.

“We are frozen in time,” Ruber explained. I heard just a little bit of pride in his voice. “Milo was attempting to remove himself from normal space-time with his artifact. I simply expanded the effect to include us as well.” He tried to sound casual about what he’d done, but I knew he was doing that to be a gem’s equivalent of cool. No way was pulling off a trick like freezing things in time easy. I remembered I was crushing Hawk and rolled off him.

Hawk got up and held out his hand to help me to my feet. Then he looked around and marveled, “This is incredible.” He moved his hand through the air, and I could see smudges in the specks of dust from his fingers. “This is how you disappear,” he said to Milo. “You take yourself out of time and then are free to travel anywhere and any when you wish. To the outside, it appears as if you simply vanish.”

The giant bunny ignored his words and futilely shook the watch again. He reminded me of my dad trying to “fix” the remote by shaking it until it behaved. Didn’t work for Dad either. “Oh dear, oh dear,” Milo mumbled to himself as he realized his escape had been foiled.

Hawk put his hand on Truheart’s hilt and asked me, “Still think he is a defenseless rabbit?”

I slapped his hand away. “Yes.” I returned to facing Milo. “You can turn this off. We aren’t going to hurt you.”